Knickerbockers Who Asserted and Insisted [ 137 ] English strategy—to bargain in good faith with the Dutch provincial interest—succeeded in securing Dutch acceptance of English provincial autonomy. That English strategy was fundamentally sound does not mean, however, that the transition to English rule was smooth. Instead, it was characterized by fits and starts. Specific incidents, including, but not limited to, the conquests themselves, as well as a natural consciousness of novelty and uncertainty, created a Dutch provincial interest in New York politics. The purpose of this interest was to establish precedents, beginning with the 1664 Articles of Capitulation, in formative years which would guarantee rights and privileges in future years.63 English policy ultimately succeeded in pacifying the Dutch provincial interest by accepting the reality of limited power and by proceeding to render English and Dutch interests at least compatible, if not complementary. In addition to satisfying interests of the elite strata that could cooperate on a provincial level, the English allowed some areas to remain distinctively Dutch. This meant that not all sectional areas experienced the strains associated with heterogeneity and thereby offered an outlet to which people could escape from uneasy ethnic variety (New York City to Albany, for example). The combination of restricted political and geographical hegemony localized ethnic conflict and allowed sectional, class, and other concerns to dominate Dutch activity in the 1680s. Anglo-Dutch politics thus sanctioned local enclaves of exclusivity and ethnic hegemony as legitimate components of pluralist society—a concept uncommon in contemporary American discussions of pluralism. Anglo-Dutch pluralism in seventeenth-century New York meant, then, the acceptance of limited power in relatively exclusive areas of interest (Albany, Dutch Reformed church), shared power in more mutual areas of interest (New York City government, New York provincial government), and equivalent rights in areas of privilege (property rights, charters for both Anglican and Dutch Reformed churches). Pluralism did not, however, involve a theory of equality applied 58 One might compare the impact of the English conquest on the Dutch to the impact of war on other national groups. See David M. Potter, "The Historian's Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa? American Historical Review, LXVII (July 1962), 937.1 have found in Potter's article fine conceptual tools with which to study unity and division in national groups.